Mindship (v1.0), page 6
Kiigarin wandered across the wide, low-ceilinged lounge, becoming aware of the forces present in the room. This was the nexus of the ship, the focal point for the psychic energies of its crew. The room was roughly circular, sloping toward a central point, a counter and console arrangement that Kilgarin recognized as the main food dispensing area. Overhead glowplates cast a soft light too delicate to create a shadow. Kilgarin walked a few steps into the lounge, peering down the rows of tables and booths, aware of the tensions that lived in the room. He felt himself opening up to the emotions in the lounge in the same way he’d opened to the emotions aboard the Drowner. It was different here, however. The emotions he received were twisted and misshapen, ugly, inhuman. Waves of hate beat against him, within him, and he turned away, cutting off his reception and closing in on himself while he regained his breath. He felt unclean, as though he’d been physically invaded.
When he finally straightened, Kilgarin saw that the Cook had been watching him, eyes bright and gleaming. “You see?” the small man asked. “This ship is insane. I’ve been with her three years, and it’s always been this way. The first time I stepped aboard. I nearly dropped. It’s Strong.”
“How do you stand living with it?” Kilgarin asked.
“You leam. It’s not easy, but it’s not hard, either. Think about it. There’s nothing here that’s not inside each of us.”
“But there’s so much…”
“Quite a few crew members have a little of it in them. Even the Captain.”
“The Captain. I wanted to talk to him.” Kilgarin glanced at his hands, forcing them to be steady. “About my brother. He shouldn’t have been contracted, not for something like a Cork’s position. You know that, if you knew him.”
“I knew it, but not the Captain. The whole business was new to him. He’d been a Mate until our previous Captain was killed. He’s never had to meet a crisis like this before, picking a Cork…” The Cook’s voice faded. He smiled, wrinkling the left side of his face. “Try to understand him, Kilgarin. Living in a ship like this can damage a man’s sensibilities…he didn’t mean to hurt your brother. The boy seemed strong. He made a good Cork, until we had that accident.”
“A good Cork, on a ship like this…?”
“Listen: we hit a Black Hole, our Cork was breaking, the Captain had to hold him together, any way he could. He tried too hard. You’ve played the wafer, haven’t you? It’s all there.”
“The how, yes.” Kilgarin said. “But not the why. I have to know why the Captain contracted him. I don’t care what happened; that’s done, my brother’s buried already…but I need to know why it was done. Showing me that this ship is insane doesn’t tell me any more than 1 already knew. I don’t believe a Physical Captain can be affected that much living here. There has to be something more. I’ve got to find out what it is. You’re a Sensitive; you can understand that, can’t you?”
The Cook looked at Kilgarin, his mouth working as he tried to phrase an answer. “The Captain’s changed,” he said finally. “He hides inside himself, but he’s a good man. A good Captain, now.”
“Maybe he is,” Kilgarin said. “I’ll find out for myself, won’t I?”
“I guess you will,” the Cook said with resignation. “I guess you will.”
On Kilgarin’s second knock the door slid silently open. He stepped through into the Captain’s quarters and moved down a narrow hallway that curved with the main corridor of the ship. There were sounds from the refresher cubicle set apart from the main cabin, the hum of the cleaner fading as Kilgarin entered the main room. He waited, standing with his arms folded and letting his eyes adjust to the bright lighting—harsh compared to the rest of the ship—as he looked around at the one-and-one-half room suite.
The walls were bare, the sparse furniture completely functional,, the only, item betraying any real wear being the viewing console tucked off near the inflatable bed. The console was still turned on when Kilgarin entered, though unfocused and untuned; images moved across the screen in random patterns, the sound too low to be audible. Kilgarin glanced at it only briefly as he scanned the room, looking for some hint of the Captain’s personality in his choice of objects and design. The room looked frankly uninhabited. Kilgarin shivered, then laughed at himself nervously. Intimidated by an empty room.
“Yes? Can I help your Kilgarin turned at the sound of the voice and faced a man roughly his height and weight though obviously older. Kilgarin estimated the Captain to be approaching thirty. The man stood at the door to the ’fresher, drawing on his jump suit and zipping up the suit’s front as he stared at Kilgarin. Kilgarin smiled. The Captain started, his eyes widening, a frown flashing for an instant, then fading away.
“I’m sorry,” the Captain said, “but for a moment you looked like someone I knew. It’s nothing. Are you signing aboard? Did the Cook send you up?”
“Not exactly, Captain. As a matter of fact, he tried to convince me not to come.”
The Captain scowled—firmly, this time—and moved across the room to the viewing console. He flicked the screen off and returned his attention to Kilgarin. “He did? Can you tell me why?”
“I’m Marc Kilgarin’s brother.”
“I see.”
“I wanted to talk with you about the way he died.”
“Weren’t you told?”
“Things like that…information gets garbled. I prefer to hear it from you. You were there when it happened.”
The Captain’s face relaxed and he sighed, settling onto the stool molded into the desk before the console. His shoulders moved restlessly as he spoke. “I was there. We’d made it all the way to Centauri with our cargo, we’d shuttled to some of the colonies in the western Arm, and we were heading back to the rim. Three weeks out from Centauri, he blew. Like that. I tried to save him, but it was impossible—between keeping the ship together and saving your brother, it was all I could do to maintain my own sanity. There was nothing, nothing I could do for him.” His hands moved over his knees, pulling at the material, straightening it. “I’m very sorry it happened the way it did.”
Kilgarin leaned against the wall that ran into the narrow hall, feeling the muscles in his arms knot as he forced his hands to his sides and into the loops of his suit. He felt dizzy from the emotions surging through him. Up to that moment he hadn’t truly encountered his brother’s death on a personal level—he’d been shocked, grieved, pained—but until the Captain had told in simple words how it had happened, the death bad had no gut meaning for Kilgarin. Now it did. For a brief moment he closed his eyes and trembled. When he opened them once more, he searched the eyes of the Captain.
He wanted to know the reason for what had happened. No more and certainly no less. It was part of being a Sensitive: he was all too aware of the random nature of events, and how the most well-intentioned plans may have disastrous effects. What mattered was not the effect but the intention. He needed to know the Captain’s intention in hiring his brother, and in driving Marc Kilgarin to his death. At that moment it was the consuming force in James Kilgarin’s life.
He searched the Captain’s eyes, but the other man’s feelings were buried too deeply. Nothing was visible, only a cool barrier. Kilgarin paused, hesitating. He was not sure he had the stomach for a direct probe of another man’s mind, so soon after leaving the Drowner. Was there an alternative?
No.
Gathering himself, he concentrated on the field of the Captain’s mind—and he pushed.
His mind dove forward, into the Captain’s soul.
There was a moment of darkness for Kilgarin, during which he floundered, searching for some common ground of orientation between himself and the Captain. At last he found it: the mindship world, the crew/officer relationship. Steadied, Kilgarin plunged deeper, into the other man’s subconscious—and found himself stopped by the mental counterpart of the barrier he’d seen in the Captain’s eyes. Here, however, it was more than an unemotional attitude. It was a block rising between the conscious and unconscious. Kilgarin pressed, but the mindblock was unyielding. He searched for an opening, but there was none. He tried to filter through, but couldn’t. There was no way past the block, none at all; be was totally and completely halted.
He stepped back mentally. It was a mindblock, and not one erected by a machine—those were clumsy, ill-fitting affairs, useful to hide select information, but not whole areas of experience. No, it was psychologically organic, which was, of course, a flat impossibility. The Captain wasn’t a Sensitive, could not be. if he were part of Crew Administration. There were strict Company regulations about Sensitives being in charge of a ship, enforced with careful screening of all applicants to an Administrative position. The Captain could not be a Sensitive, therefore he could not have planted the block himself; it was too complete.
Then who? And more importantly for Kilgarin’s purposes: why? What was the Captain trying to conceal, so well that he kept the secret even from himself? The reason for Marc Kilgarin’s death? If so, who would help him hide it?
Stunned and confused, Kilgarin withdrew. Less than a second had passed; the Captain hadn’t noticed the changing expression on the ex-Cork’s face. The man was still straightening the material of his trousers and only now looked up at Kilgarin.
“I’ve already explained it to the Company representative here on Endrim,” the Captain said. “There was some discussion concerning my behavior, but that’s all finished with. They decided I’d acted rashly, but considering the circumstances surrounding the matter they thought my actions perfectly excusable. You should know that they docked me two months’ pay for endangering the ship. They think that settled the matter, and though naturally I’m—saddened by what happened, I agree with them. There was nothing I could do. Nothing. You understand that, don’t you?”
His voice grew lower as he ended his speech, and KILGARIN had to strain to make out the last few words. He was still trembling from his experience inside the Captain’s mind, and was already beginning to feel ashamed for attempting the invasion in the first place. It was against all codes of conduct to do what he had done. Kilgarin felt his face and hands growing warm as he listened to the Captain’s hurried apology. When it was over, he nodded, quickly.
“I do understand. Captain. I just wanted to speak with you about it. You were the last person to see him alive.”
“He was a fine Cork, Fellow Kilgarin. One of the finest.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you decided what you’re going to do with the remainder of his Contract?”
“I could buy it out,” Kilgarin said. “I’ve a little money saved, though I’d planned to use it on other things.”
“Are you a Sensitive yourself?” The Captain eased himself off the stool and stood cracking his knuckles; he seemed distracted.
“It runs in the family.”
“So I understand. You could finish his Contract term yourself, then, couldn’t you?” The Captain’s eyes rose and looked fully at Kilgarin for the first time. The Sensitive shrugged and found himself looking away. “Let me know when you decide,” the Captain said. His eyes began moving again. “Just about now, I could use a good Cork.”
“Is he always that way?” Kilgarin asked. “He made me feel like a child, an absolute fool.”
Beside him the Cook shrugged. They were walking down the broad avenue leading from the port area into the tavern district. “It’s hard to say. Sometimes he’s worse. He turns on and off; sometimes he sees you, sometimes not. He was like that with the Cork, your brother, going Out.”
“Do you know him very well?”
“Well enough, I suppose. We came aboard the same time, when the Charier was commissioned. He was First Mate, and I was Cook. We talked sometimes, not much.”
“When was that? When the Charter received her commission?”
“Forty-three. Forty-four? No, it was forty-three.”
“She’s only been commissioned three years?” Kilgarin shook his head. He pointed down the street they were crossing. “Pul’s place is down that way. Free drinks.”
“Go,” said the Cook, and crossed the street ahead of him.
Though it was still early in the day, the Llyia’s was partly filled with crew from the five or six ships staying over at the Endrim port. Even so, Pul filled Kilgarin’s order promptly and found time to join them in a toast, raising his own glass to his lips with a trembling hand. “Gets this way a bit, sometimes,” he said when the hand trembled too much and spilled absinthe on the bar. “In the mornings, not so good. Old, ’y’know?” He eyed the Cook, who was watching him rub the liquor into the counter top with a rag. “Who friend, Killy?”
“Calls himself Cook,” Kilgarin said. “He’s with the Charter.”
“Heard about that ship, bad. People speak, round port. Here, at party last night…” Pul frowned. The muscles in his cheek jumped and tugged at his lower eyelid. “Wasn’t…r “That’s the one,” Kilgarin said quietly.
“Drink?” Pul asked, in apology.
“Let me finish this one,” Kilgarin answered. He turned to the Cook a moment later. “Isn’t the Charter a cargo ship? That’s why she’s on Endrim now, right?:
“Absinthe. You have it. After Endrira, we head into the Outworlds, along the eastern Spiral.”
“Bad that,” Pul said, leaning forward. “Company not strong, not there. Heard? Like Centauri in ’28.”
The Cook nodded. “But if the Company says go, we go. The cargo pays for the charting…or so they say.”
“Let’s not talk about that,” Kilgarin said. “I want to think about this a moment. Pul? Another beer?”
The bartender gave it to him and Kilgarin sipped at the sweet liquid, staring past the edge of the bar at the pipes winding in the console behind the counter. He let his gaze travel along the pipes, his mind drifting back to memories of his years on Wellington. Not much of that time was left within him. Most of the memories were dulled, but some were still bright and alive. Wellington. His homeworld.
It was a cold planet, not semitropical like Endrim, half again as far from it’s G-type star as the earth was from Sol—one-and-one-half astronomical units, in the old measure. During the winters his father would spend most of the day collecting wood and bargaining for the native mineral they called coal. When summer came—mild summers that were over before they’d really begun—Kiigarin’s father would bring him out to the fields, where they’d labor from dawn until sunset to bring in a crop of Roots, the all-purpose vegetable that had been designed for the Wellington climate by the Company botanical engineers—and for which they extracted a harvest percentage. He remembered the feel of sweat crawling down his spine, and he remembered the bitter chill that would lodge below his ears, and remembering, he shivered and sipped at his glass of beer.
There were other memories; pleasant memories. His brother was six years younger than he, and Kilgarin could recall the day and hour of Marc’s birth very clearly. It’d been during the early days of spring, in 3128. They’d received word about the trouble on Centauri just a week before, which was why the time of year remained so clearly in Kilgarin’s mind. His father had been worried, wondering if the attempted rebellion would affect the Company’s attitude toward its other colonies—and how this would in turn affect the upbringing of Charleton Kilgarin’s second child. As it turned out his fears were unfounded. There had never been any reprisals, at least, none that were apparent to the young James Kilgarin. His brother was bom a week later, small and pink, a wizened old man’s face squinting out of white bedclothes, small hands—even then—moving and exploring. Mouth squealing. Kilgarin’s initial feelings were mixed. For some time he had a vague feeling of discomfort, and once, when he was alone with the infant, he found himself wondering how to dispose of the child. When he realized what he’d been thinking, he’d become upset and then ill, and was unable to go into the fields with his father for several days. After that he treated Marc with distant respect, which later hardened into cool reserve.
Remembering this, Kilgarin found himself shaking, and he groped for his glass of absinthe and beer and downed it in one long swallow. The Cook was watching him with an odd expression. Kilgarin ignored him and ordered another beer, and only after he’d finished half of it did he turn to the diminutive ex-Sensitive.
“Something bothering you, friend?”
“You,” the Cook said.
“Don’t concern yourself with me, friend. I’m capable of handling myself.”
“Sure. But it’s still bothering me, and you asked. Maybe there’s something you should know, Kilgarin. After your brother died, somebody had to Cork the Charier. Only one man could. Me. Yes, I used to be a Cork, nine, ten years back. I broke pretty bad, and it took me four years to get back even this much”—he gestured with a hand that moved awkwardly, nervously—“control. Four years, and then I became a Cook. But after your brother collapsed, the Charter was falling, and it needed someone to save it—the same man who saved it before. Me. You know what that does to a blown Cork? To go back?”
“I can imagine,” Kilgarin said softly. The Cook’s voice was cracking with emotion as he went on.
“Sure, imagine. So listen, maybe you know, maybe you don’t. But you know this much—I can still feel things, and right now I can feel you. You’re burning up inside. It’s net good, what you feel. It’s a waste, a hurt. I don’t want to feel it with you, but I can’t stop it now, inside me. You can imagine, sure. But you can’t know.” He cut off KILGARIN before the Cork could speak.
“Just be careful, Kilgarin. You understand pain…but maybe not enough. Too much pain inside you, and you can break. Like I did. or like him.” He swept a hand over to indicate Pul. Ill coordinated, it caught the rim of his glass and sent the mug spinning off the counter and into the console. Glass shattered loudly, the spell was broken, the room became noisy once more.
